Jean-Yves Parisot

"We were pioneers in how we thought of AI, not as a threat to creation, but as an apprentice to our perfumers – or an extension of our perfumers’ minds!"

— Dr. Jean-Yves Parisot

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Overview

Dr Jean-Yves Parisot DVM, MBA
Born	(1964-02-07) 7 February 1964 Lunéville, France
Citizenship	French
Education	Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM)
Alma mater	École Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon; HEC Paris
Occupation(s)	Business executive and veterinarian
Employer	Symrise
Known for	CEO of Symrise; president of the International Organization of the Flavor Industry
Title	Chief Executive Officer
Term	2024–present
Predecessor	Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Board member of	Symrise (Executive Board); Probi AB (chairman); Swedencare AB (non-executive director); VetAgro Sup (chair)

🧪Jean-Yves Parisot (born 7 February 1964) is a French veterinarian and business executive who has served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Symrise, a German flavors, fragrances and ingredients company, since 31 March 2024. Trained as a doctor of veterinary medicine at the École Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon and holding an MBA from HEC Paris, he built a career that links animal health, food ingredients and industrial chemistry. Before becoming CEO he headed Symrise's Nutrition segment and later the combined Flavor & Nutrition division, and has served on the company's Executive Board since 2016.

🌐Strategic positioning. As chief executive, Parisot has promoted a "One Symrise" strategy intended to reduce barriers between the company's fragrance, flavor and nutrition activities, encouraging cross-functional innovation and joint development of technologies such as SymTrap cold extraction and renewable "green chemistry" fragrance molecules. Under his leadership Symrise has emphasized sustainability, highlighting the firm's historic use of upcycled ingredients and expanding programs that support smallholder farmers, while continuing to target above-market growth in high-value areas such as health, beauty and pet nutrition. He is also president of the International Organization of the Flavor Industry (IOFI), giving him a sector-wide platform on regulatory and scientific questions.

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Early life and education

👶Family and studies. Jean-Yves Parisot was born on 7 February 1964 in Lunéville in north-eastern France, and developed an early interest in science and animals that led him to train as a veterinarian at the École Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon. He completed his veterinary degree as a doctor of veterinary medicine and subsequently complemented this scientific education with a management programme, graduating with an MBA from HEC Paris in 1988.

🎓Shift from practice to business. After qualifying as a veterinarian, Parisot chose to move from clinical work into industry, joining Pfizer's French affiliate in 1989 in a sales and marketing role that allowed him to apply his technical training in a commercial context. This early decision to combine veterinary science with business responsibilities helped define a career characterised by analytical rigor and cross-disciplinary thinking in international environments.

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Career

💼Early corporate roles. In the early 1990s Parisot advanced within the animal health sector, becoming European product manager at Merial, the animal health business of Rhône-Poulenc, where he worked on vaccines and pharmaceuticals for livestock and companion animals. In 1996, at the age of 32, he was appointed general manager of Rhône-Poulenc's operations in Poland, gaining experience in managing a business in a rapidly changing post-Communist market.

🏭Ingredients and industrial gases. In 2000 Parisot moved into the food ingredients sector as head of the "Prepared Food" business unit at Rhodia, a chemicals company created from Rhône-Poulenc, while also serving as vice-president for Europe. He later broadened his exposure to the global food and nutrition value chain by joining Danisco in 2004 as vice-president for global marketing and sales development and, in 2006, Air Liquide as global market director for the Food & Pharma segment.

🥗Diana Group and integration into Symrise. In 2009 Parisot became head of the food division at Diana Group, a French company specialising in natural flavours and pet nutrition ingredients, with a mandate to expand its food ingredients business internationally. When Symrise acquired Diana in 2014 for about €1.3 billion, he played a key role in integrating the business and was appointed head of the newly created Diana division within Symrise, combining natural nutrition capabilities with Symrise's existing flavour portfolio. Colleagues and company communications have credited him with facilitating cultural integration and developing synergies between human food, pet food and health ingredients.

🧩Executive Board and "One Symrise". In October 2016 Symrise's supervisory board appointed Parisot to the executive board as president of the Nutrition segment, a move described by the company as underscoring its global growth ambitions in flavour and nutrition. By 2021 he was responsible for a combined Flavor & Nutrition division, and in March 2024 he succeeded Heinz-Jürgen Bertram as CEO following a planned transition that Symrise characterised as smooth and based on continuity with an experienced internal candidate. As an executive board member and later CEO, Parisot has promoted a "One Symrise" approach that brings together fragrance, flavour and nutrition teams to collaborate on technologies such as SymTrap cold extraction and renewable fragrance molecules developed at the Holzminden laboratory.

📊Performance as chief executive. Under Parisot's leadership Symrise has continued to grow, though at a moderated pace in a challenging macroeconomic environment. In the first quarter of 2025 the company reported organic sales growth of 4.2%, with revenue of €1.317 billion, and he stated that Symrise had again achieved profitable growth despite ongoing uncertainty. Later in 2025 he acknowledged a shift in global demand and revised the company's full-year organic growth outlook from 5–7% to 3–5%, while launching efficiency measures targeting €40 million in cost savings, of which around half had been realised by mid-year. Symrise maintained an EBITDA margin of about 21–22% during this period, but its market capitalisation, estimated at around US$11 billion in late 2025, was roughly one quarter lower than a year earlier, reflecting wider headwinds in the flavours and fragrances sector. Parisot has set a medium-term objective of delivering profitable, above-market growth through 2028, with a focus on high-value segments such as health and beauty ingredients.

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Financials and wealth

💶Executive remuneration. As CEO of a DAX-listed company, Parisot receives a remuneration package that combines fixed and variable elements. In 2024, his first year as chief executive, his total compensation amounted to about €2.21 million, including a fixed base salary of approximately €841,000 and performance-related components tied to financial and strategic targets; in 2023, as a division head, his total pay was around €1.78 million. Symrise emphasises pay-for-performance in its remuneration policy, with roughly half of the CEO's package designed as variable pay linked to profitability, growth and sustainability metrics, and additional long-term incentive plans based on multi-year objectives such as total shareholder return and earnings per share growth.

🏦Wealth and share ownership. Public disclosures indicate that Parisot does not benefit from a company-funded defined-benefit pension plan and that his retirement arrangements are largely private, in line with Symrise's approach for executive board members. His personal wealth derives mainly from cumulative salary, bonuses and performance-based incentives over several decades rather than from a large equity stake; he is not listed among Symrise's major shareholders, and his shareholdings are primarily the result of long-term incentive plans. Commenting more broadly on the chemicals and ingredients sector, he has argued that the key challenge for executives is balancing customer needs with innovation, rather than pursuing headline-grabbing valuations.

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Other roles and industry activities

📋Board mandates. Alongside his responsibilities at Symrise, Parisot holds several external board positions. He serves as chairman of the board of Probi AB, a Swedish probiotics company, and as a non-executive director of Swedencare AB, a pet healthcare and nutraceuticals firm based in Malmö. He also chairs the board of VetAgro Sup in Lyon, the veterinary and agronomy institute that evolved from the school where he studied, reflecting ongoing engagement with academic and scientific communities. These roles are presented by Symrise as complementary to its own activities in nutrition, pet food and health ingredients rather than conflicting interests.

🌎Role in industry associations. In late 2023 Parisot was elected president of the International Organization of the Flavor Industry, the global trade association for the flavour sector, for a three-year term. In this capacity he represents producers in discussions with regulators and stakeholders worldwide, emphasising the importance of science-based regulation, sustainability and responsible sourcing for the long-term development of the industry; in his inaugural remarks he described himself as a "captain" steering a collective team effort on these issues.

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Personal life and leadership style

🏡Privacy and background. Despite his prominent corporate role, Parisot maintains a relatively low public profile in his private life. Few details are disclosed about his family, and available biographies focus primarily on his professional trajectory. A French national leading a major German-based company, he is described as cosmopolitan and comfortable operating across cultures and disciplines, drawing on training that spans veterinary science, management and international business.

🧠Management style. Observers and colleagues characterise Parisot's management style as analytical, detail-oriented and open to expert input, traits often linked to his scientific training as a veterinarian. He has stated that "the most important component of a successful fragrance house is the people, the culture" and that his role as CEO is to "inspire, ignite and help the creators" within the organisation, highlighting an emphasis on team development and long-term thinking.

🌱Sustainability and innovation focus. Parisot has linked his personal interest in animal and environmental health to a strong sustainability agenda at Symrise, citing the company's historical use of upcycled ingredients and supporting programmes that work with thousands of smallholder farmers, including vanilla growers in Madagascar, to secure fair incomes and environmental stewardship. He has also promoted investment in research and development and in digital tools such as the Philyra artificial-intelligence system, presented as an "apprentice" that augments rather than replaces perfumers' creativity, positioning technology as a complement to human expertise.

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Controversies and challenges

⚖️Fragrance cartel investigations. In March 2023 Symrise was among several fragrance suppliers subject to raids by competition authorities in a multi-jurisdictional investigation into possible anti-competitive practices such as price-fixing or customer allocation. Symrise's management, including Parisot, denied wrongdoing and pledged cooperation with regulators; in May 2025 the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority discontinued its case against Symrise on administrative priority grounds while continuing probes into other companies, a development welcomed by the group. Following the episode, Symrise reported strengthening its internal compliance training and reaffirmed its commitment to fair competition and transparency in its supply chains.

📉Market headwinds and resilience. Beyond regulatory scrutiny, Parisot has faced business challenges linked to cost inflation, supply-chain disruptions and shifting consumer demand, which contributed to slower growth in 2023–2025 and to volatility in Symrise's share price. Market data indicate that Symrise shares fell by around 26% in 2022 amid these pressures, before stabilising, and that the group has since focused on building resilience through efficiency measures, selective acquisitions and closer control of raw-material sourcing. Parisot has promoted backward integration and membership of initiatives such as the Union for Ethical BioTrade and Forest Stewardship Council certification, arguing that sustainability is "in [Symrise's] DNA" and a driver of innovation as well as risk management.

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Legacy and outlook

🐾Unusual training for a CEO. Commentators have noted that Parisot is unusual among leaders of major global flavour and fragrance companies, and among chief executives of DAX-listed firms, in holding a doctorate in veterinary medicine. His scientific background has been cited as informing an "ecosystem" view of business that links human and animal nutrition, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and agriculture, and helps him connect apparently disparate activities within Symrise's portfolio.

✈️International career and acquisitions. Over more than three decades, Parisot has worked in France, Poland, Denmark, the United States and Germany, among other locations, and has highlighted how each posting shaped his management approach, from agility in emerging markets to a focus on quality and engineering rigour. As CEO he has continued Symrise's international expansion, including the acquisition in 2023 of a majority stake in Chinese company Wing Pet Food to strengthen the group's pet nutrition presence in Asia.

📚Future direction. As Symrise moves through the latter half of the 2020s under Parisot's leadership, observers see a continuity between his early training as a veterinarian and his current responsibilities at the helm of a diversified ingredients group: in both roles he seeks to balance nature and science, tradition and innovation, growth and responsibility. His trajectory from rural veterinary studies to international executive positions is frequently cited as an example of how diverse professional experiences can inform corporate strategy in sectors that depend on both scientific insight and close collaboration with customers and suppliers.

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